Current Events > WSJ editor accused of trying to suppress story

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Wall Street Journal staff members circulated an anonymously written email on Thursday accusing a senior editor which some later identified as editor-in-chief Gerry Baker -- of suppressing a story and accompanying graphic because they were too liberal.

The email urged staffers to begin tweeting the graphics-heavy story at noon, which many did. The story and graphics detailed the countrys recovery from the 2008 financial crisis but also included information on how economic inequality had increased.

A Journal spokesman denied that the editor had suppressed the story.

This project first published Tuesday morning and has been online ever since, a Journal spokesman said in a statement to POLITICO. The team will be adding additional reporting and analysis on the crisis and its aftermath.

Its that additional reporting and analysis that apparently caused the tension in the Journal newsroom that spilled out publicly Thursday afternoon.

One person familiar with the matter told POLITICO that there was a miscommunication and that Baker had not seen the final version of the story and graphics before they was published, and wanted them expanded. The person disputed the idea that Baker wanted to suppress the story, saying that he wanted to put it to the side and then resurface it in a more prominent position on the Journals web site once more information was added.

Baker wanted something more exhaustive, with more macro-economic context, according to the source, including a lot more on the markets. Without that information, he felt, it was tilting in one direction making it too liberal.

A second Wall Street Journal newsroom employee confirmed that Baker was unhappy with the initial version and requested the additional information, so that the piece could later be re-launched.

Baker has faced criticism in the past for softening coverage of President Donald Trump. He has denied the criticisms, but claimed that other outlets had been too one-sided in their coverage of the 2016 election.

Asked if he thought Bakers motivation for requesting that more market data be added to the package was political, the employee said, Its hard for me to not believe that. Nothing in that article was factually incorrect, even looking at it now, I dont even think its that controversial.

Whether Baker had legitimate journalist grounds for re-tooling the piece, the request for changes was interpreted by some staffers as rooted in politics. Jesse Eisinger of the nonprofit news site ProPublica tweeted that hed heard Baker tried to kill the story because it didnt conform to his political views.
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The financial crisis piece published on Thursday, which was reported by Cezary Podkul, examines what has and hasnt changed over the past decade through text, graphs, and images. While the good times are back in the market, Podkul acknowledges that inequality has grown across the country. The piece includes pictures of protesters on the left and right and notes that many people across the political spectrum complain that the recovery is uneven and the markets' gains aren't fairly distributed.
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"This week a senior editor at the Wall Street Journal attempted to take a graphic offline because the facts it contained were not politically palatable, it read. When that failed, it was 'de-surfaced,' or, in other terms, taken off the front page and links were removed to it from as many places as possible. After an early flurry of traffic, views plummeted. This is censorship and it is beneath the standards of the Wall Street Journal. It isn't the first time either.

Baker wanted something more exhaustive, with more macro-economic context, according to the source, including a lot more on the markets. Without that information, he felt, it was tilting in one direction making it too liberal.